thunderbirds are now!

i once spent a year in east lansing, michigan. not really a place that has a lot going for itself (unless you like american football or basketball). the whole year the theaters only showed one foreign movie (amores peros). one of the few things keeping me sane were these guys that had shows in the basement. anyhow, if i'm not mistaken i caught the thunderbirds are now! there once. and i was fairly impressed. and i'm probably more impressed by their new cd justamustache. basically new wavy power pop with some nice twists. locate them somewhere in between hot hot heat (just to avoid confusion - i did like hhh. not sure about the new one though) and les savy fav. i've also heard people mention brainiac but noone can really touch brainiac. anyway, hell of a lot of fun.

bellafea

bellafea is a duo that hails from north carolina. they just released an ep "family tree" that is, well, quite excellent. listening to thorn bird one can't help but think "hey, they've listened to blonde redhead" (which, really, can only be a compliment) but then they take the song in different directions and, well, pretty quiet directions at that. i look forward to hearing more.

jeff hanson

awfully busy these days. anyhow, jeff hanson's first album son sort of kept under the radar, which was very unfortunate for those who missed it. simply excellent stuff that sounds a bit like elliot smith if elliot had sung like a girl. no, jeff is not a girl. his new self-titled album treads much the same water as his previous effort but is perhaps slightly less poppy. perfect music for sunday mornings and thursday afternoons. highly recommended.

other stuff sticking to my cd player. the norwegian shining. on the label rune grammofon that is single handedly saving norway from the bottom seat on the list of interesting countries. the shining really can't be described without making them sound awful - words like prog, fusion, etc. pop up in my head so it was with great trepidation that i pressed that play button. but hot damn, did this stuff blow my mind! definately not the stuff i listen to normally but this one won me over. rune grammofon also deserve for their covers, see some here: http://www.boomkat.com/promotion.cfm?id=2. then there is red sparowes. another surprise. contains members of neurosis, isis and, uh, some other band. if you like mono, or mogwai, then this is something you must check out. stunningly beautiful and loud.

oxes

i hadn't listened to the oxes in a while. so i did. i still love them. and then i also have a soft spot for red martian. though they sound nothing like the oxes.

pony up!

yet another montreal band. this one actually counts as its member my former hair stylist - i guess that is my brush with fame! [pun not intended at first but i'm leaving it like this]. anyhow, quite nice. jangly guitar pop probably goes a far way to describe the bands. at any rate, their s-t ep is promising - except for an apparently unhealthy obsession with matthew modine, which is really the only blemish on the 7 song ep. above, great pop fun. check out their website: http://www.ponyup.ca/

les georges leningrad

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i never liked the name of this band - i was expecting some sort of russian folk punk or something (which actually sounds kinda fun) - so i never checked them out. that was probably a mistake. but not my only one so i'm not going to feel too bad about it. oh, well. this is of their sur les traces de black eskimo. they call it post-punk electro but in the end is sounds a little industrial - but with a sense of humour.

the talk

i quite like this. from the album like magic in reverse that is out in about a month or so on the north carolina's moRisen label. something to look forward to if the rest of the album sounds like this.

j & lou

who would have thought? dinosaur jr. is reuniting for a few shows. i'm not sure how i feel about that. but then again dinosaur jr. always just sounded like one long guitar solo live and you would never have guessed how great their albums were from seeing them live. at any rate, this should keep lou from releasing more crap for a little while. here is one of their best.

mary timony

well, well, mary timony (and her ex-outfit helium) seemed always a little underrated to me. and any polvo fan that hasn't checked helium out should be ashamed of themselves b/c of ash bowie's role. anyhow, mary has a new album coming out soon and although bowie is absent we should be in for a treat nevertheless.

kitchens of distinction

the first time i heard interpol on the radio i thought "cool, they are playing the kitchens of distinction." digging out my kitchens' albums and listening again to them after years of gathering dust of course makes plain that i must have been drunk. yet, there are certainly strong similarities in place. i guess the kitchens were lodged somewhere between shoegazing and the wedding present and, yes, their music hasn't aged terribly well - mostly thanks to the sound on the albums, which seems a bit thin. however, it is somehow easy to imagine how the albums would sound if they were recorded today - they would sound a bit like interpol! above, a sample from their love is hell album and here one from strange free world.

is this funny?

remember veruca salt? sort of weezer for the boys. decent fun, anyhow. then nina gordon left the band (she was the cuter one!) and started a solo career. the results were so horrible that you have probably never heard any of her stuff. i mean really horrible. anyhow, when i saw that she had done a cover of N.W.A. I thought maybe she had snapped out of it, stopped making whiny crap and would perhaps deliver something interesting. instead, it sounds like this. this is so incredibly bad. i can not believe how bad it is. it makes me laugh. but it also makes me a bit nauseous. therefore i had to post it. for nina's sake i hope that ice cube never hears this. but then again, i don't really care.

calla et al

what else is new. well, calla is preparing a new album - first taste over at www.callamusic.com. not disagreeable at all. caribou has been spinning but not scoring the points that manitoba managed to get. 13+god, the collaboration of themselves and notwist, is a little disappointing - each band is, well, absolutely fabuous (esp. notwist) but thinks don't really click here. the queens of the stone age, which i secretly love, aren't doing it for me either. the best track already appear on the desert sessions 124-125. still fun though. thee silver mount zion.... have been singing too much. british sea power is overpolished. hell, everything just seems crap these days.

lucky pierre

how did i miss this? arab strap's moffat has a side project! and touchpool is his second album. my, my! arab strap never really sounded like the very up to speed with technology with their simple drum programming but apparently moffat has a few tricks up his sleeve. lucky pierre is electronic, slightly cinematic perhaps. pretty pleasant.

enon

one of my big regrets in life is never to have seen brainiac live. sigh. it was a brilliant band and if you haven't checked them out you should. john schmersal formed enon after brainiac disappear from our sight after releasing an album under the name john stuart mill in between. jsm was in some ways a big departure from brainiac being almost acoustic but enon at first represented a return to a territority not dissimilar from brainiac. then enon took a different turn. and then several more. anyhow, lost marbles and exploded evidence is a collection of b-sides and other stuff that enon has released over the years. some of it is brilliant some of it not so much so. but then it is fun and inventive. the sample sort of represents pieces of both with the schmersal "part" of the song sounding very much like the direction brainiac was heading in towards the end.

webjay

improved services by ghostdogjr -- on the right hand side you should be able to find a new link to webjay followed by a few tracks. click the link and you will be transported to ghostdogjr's webjay page where you can listen to the playlist that has been set up there -- sort of like radio ghostdogjr.... the songs are a mix of the old and the new for now but do not include the samples I throw on this page. and if you get bored with me you can always find other good music on webjay.org. also, i would appreciate a comment if you try it out and like it - or dislike it.

kristen

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i caught kristen opening up for deerhof in berlin over a year ago and, well, i was truely impressed by them - and not only because it was the first polish indie band i've heard. live their sound was a bit polvoesque - i couldn't honestly say that i liked all their songs but the good ones were really damn good. on record they sound quite different - somewhere between the jazzy leanings of karate and, well, sort of the tortoise/chicago sound. really damn nice actually.

intransitive preferences, iia, or extreme preference change?

again pitchforkmedia is the subject - they just published there best albums 2000-2004. and you may recall that not to long ago they published their top 50 for 2004. interestingly enough arcade fire - funeral was choosen the best of the rest in 2004. Yet it only makes it to no. 45 in the period 2000-2004. so was 2004 such a bad year in music compared to the previous four? well, not really according to the results: no. 9 animal collective - sung tongs, no. 13 madvillain - madvillainy, no. 18 devandra banhart - rejoicing in the Hands, no. 25 brian wilson - smile (sic!), no. 36 the streets - a grand don't come for free, no. 37 ghostface - the pretty toney album, and no. 40 the fiery furnaces - blueberry boat. obviously there is some inconsistency here. or did pitchforkmedia happen to change its preferences so radically over the course of a month or so? a more likely explanation are the rules used to come up with the ranking - i.e. the may not guarantee transitivity (if A is better than B, B is better than C, then A must be better than C) or perhaps it just fails on the independence of irrelevant alternatives (like when the presence of Ralph Nader determines the outcome of what is really a contest between Gore and Bush in 2000 - maybe?). at any rate, although i don't disagree a whole lot with the list, this just goes to show that lists like these are rather meaningless and we can all just relax....

bossa nova part II

Nouvelle Vague - st

somewhere I read that nouvelle vague is french for bossa nova (portugese) and new wave (english). so, if camping's flirt with bossa nova seemed like destined for failure then nouvelle vagues' album seemed doubly so. basically, this is an album of bossa nova covers of joy division, pil, the clash, dead kennedys, the sisters of mercy, the cure, and others. basically songs that don't really lend themselves to the treatment they receive here in an obvious way. naturally, the results are a little mixed but overall it is an inspired effort and the successes (or not) are not where you expect to find them. e.g, the depeche mode doesn't quite work as well as it should while the cover of love will tear us apart works pretty well, perhaps because the band avoids giving too straight of a reading of the song. perhaps the biggest surprise is too drunk to fuck, which has never sounded as intoxicatingly fun. the greatest asset of this album is that it doesn't succumb to thinking of itself as a "fun bossa nova project" but attempts instead to focus on what it was that made many of these songs so great to begin with while offering a different interpretation.

bossa nova time part I

Camping - Suburban Shore

well, not your grandma's bossa nova really. for one thing the singer sings in german, which admittedly doesn't seem right ... although it ends up sounding quite right. the rest of the trio has also released cds under the name chessie sounding more like m83's kind of shoegazing and occasionally that sounds creeps through the bossa nova. a combination somehow unlikely to succeed (on so many levels) but nevertheless the trio pulls it off effortlessly and beautifully.

silkworm - cotton girl (acoustic)

i just rediscovered this song. an acoustic cover of their own - insanely brilliant and much better than the original electric version.

sage frances

oh, and check a couple of sage's tunes out at syrdurrjomi.blogspot.com. His new one is not bad at all - not that one would have expected that from his previous albums with or with-out the non-prophets.

what's spinnin'

well that damn list has prevented to post anything else for a while. so it looks like the year starts with a whimper and not a band. disappointing releases all over the place. bright eyes' albums were subpar - although there are some good songs inbetween. trail of dead was likewise a huge disappointment as i have mentioned earlier. and now, lou barlow emerges with a album so boring that it hurts. i think somewhere along the road i just completely lost my patience for lou. yeps, sebadoh was great but the more i think about it, lou's whining was the least attractive bit of the equation. and, of course, i don't like the way he holds his bass. but all is not lost, amon tobin's soundtrack (game not movie) is pretty "nice" - "nice" because it is kinda nightmarish and scary. not his most brilliant but damn it actually makes me want to get the game it was written for. prefuse 73's new album is also promising and includes contributions from almost anyone who is worth anything - including my what's-her-name in blonde redhead. busdriver also has a new album that sounds quite interesting as well. and finally, cloud cult released an album last year that was, well, interesting. earthy types these guys i'll tell you. i don't like the earthy types but the songs don't appear to be too recycled. check 'em out here. and here

at last at last

that took a while. and i certainly regret it. and now i have decided lists are stupid and serve no purpose except to upset people. i came to this realization reading pitchforkmedia's top 100 singles 2000-2004 (as well after spending lots of time tracking down their top 50 singles of 2004). this must be some sort of an in-joke, right? justin and britney in the top 20? lcd soundsystem with two entries in the top 20? are there different standards for singles? or do none of the "regular" people release single anymore? or is pitchfork the new rolling stones? counter-revolution please!

one

Blood Brothers - Crimes

i guess this album represented a little change of pace for the blood brothers. there is a little new wave feel there i guess - at least that's what i thought when i first listened to the album but i can't really hear it anymore. now it just sounds like frantic screaming and wailing. well, not exactly, the music is actually quite "nice" and the two vocalists really make my day. but most importantly it all comes together in a solid whole. although this album is just mountains of fun i can't somtimes help notice it because i get too impressed with how the vocals and the instruments fit together. at any rate, certainly not the prettiest of this bunch but it is worth testing your patience with.

two

Madvillain - Madvillainy

well yeah, it should be apparent that i'm a sucker for mf doom. this album is just so brilliantly inventive that i have no words to describe it. and i'm not going to try. hip hop's biggest leap forward since public enemy.

three

Detachment Kit - Of this blood

the album starts of like the decemberists then kicks into gear with a song better than anything trail of the dead aspired to (ok, i'm pissed at the trail for their lame new album) before visiting the world brainiac left vacant a few years back. and then we get the prettiest song released last year. this band is just fucking amazing - most bands are content with sticking with one genre and doing it decently. not here. this band is also responsible for the best show i caught last year. devastating. how can i choose just one song? another one

four

Patrick Wolf - Lycanthropy

damn kids. don't the talented seem to get younger each year. or maybe it is just me. the new connor oberst with a taste for cabaret? it certainly shares some of the splendid theatrics that oberst is (was?) capable of. musically it is a mixture of electronics and more traditional instruments. very impressive, very addictive.

five

Arcade Fire - Funeral

if last year was any band's year it was arcade fire's year. one moment they were nowhere, the next they were on the top of the world. accordingly they are the band we would love to hate. but we can't. and i'm sure you know by now. and for god's sake, if you get a chance to see them live, do it.

six

Ratatat - Remixes vol. 1

well, i wrote about this album a couple of weeks back so.... feel free to look it up in the archives. in short, excellent reworkings of some hip hop songs. ratatat again brings horrid guitars to the mix and the results are no less fascinating than before. actually it must be more fascinating giving the higher ranking.

seven

Gonzales - Solo Piano

yes, this is the foul mouthed canadian rapper who brought us let's groove again a couple of years back. now he writes solo pieces for piano and i'll be damned if they just aren't damn pleasing. admittedly i don't think i'm perfectly able to distinguish the quality of the album and the fact that i'm still in shock after gonzales' turnaround. what next, jay-z playing the cello? at any rate, if you feel like trying something different and nice this just might be it.

i still can't help but find his website a little funny.....

eight

Max Richter - Blue Notebooks

i didn't really expect to like this album very much but i gave it a chance because it came out on fat cat. for a lack of words to describe the music it is in some ways classical (which is a bad word coming from my mouth) and in others electronic. or whatever the instrumentation not dissimilar from what many post-post-rockers (e.g. godspeed) are playing at. but the results here are very very pretty and this remained the album i listened to while working for much of the summer.

nine

Les Savy Fav - Inches

actually not an "album" but a compilation of singles released since their last release (i think). we should be thankful (or unthankful now that they are on hiatus) for bands that like les savy fav decide rocking out is far better than being cool (sorry guys). then again les savy fav doesn't really rock, i just think of them that way. there is more concern with sounds and textures but not at the cost of letting the energy down. sometimes they even verge on being dancepunk but again the emphasis would on the punk whereas everyone else seems to have forgotten that part.

ten

Interpol - Antics

probably the album i waited most anxiously for this past year. their debut really grew on me - from being just another band mining the past with good results to being (how come noone mentions the kitchens of distinction here) simple one of my favorite albums ever. deep inside i always feared that turn on the bright lights was just a fluke but at the end of the day antics proved to be about as good as one could hope for. its not a huge departure for the band in anyway.... but then again it wasn't really what i had hoped for.

eleven

The Go!Team - Thunder Lightning Strike

one frantic albums guitars, drums and horns all over the place and it sounds somewhat like what i would expect the theme song for dukes of hazard to sound like (yeps, i've never seen an episode). if i'm off track here feel free to let me know. anyhow, the album is fun as hell and i was very impressed from the moment i heard their first single. i was even more impressed when i realized these guys actually play instruments.

twelve

Frog Eyes - The Folded Palm/Ego Scriptor


so i'm cheating - it really is two albums. one studio and one live. i've been fascinated by this band lately - the 'deranged' vocals can be a little much to take at first but soon it takes over as the most important instrument in the band. these are albums that are pretty at time, powerful at others but always captivating. if you miss the young nick cave and his bad seeds this might just prove to be the fix for you.

thirteen

Ratatat - Ratatat

the album that should never have worked - horrible synth-sounding guitars mixed with hip-hop-ish beats. instead it is equally one of the most fun and most strangely moving album of the year. hot damn.

fourteen

Blonde Redhead - Misery is a butterfly

blonde redhead may just be may favorite band ever. i tend to think of misery is a butterfly as the 'baroque' version of blonde redhead. the songs are great but it probably would have ended up higher on the list if the sound hadn't been so polished - i miss the rawer breathing lo-fi sound of the earlier albums. but lovely nonetheless.

fifteen

mf doom - venomous villain

another killer album released by mf doom this year. normally productivity like this would make one suspect about the quality - and indeed many complained that his mm doom consisted mainly of beats from his special herbs albums - but there is no reason to complain. ok, it is perhaps not quite as good as viktor vaughn but then again one's expectations do change over time - mf doom brought something new to the game and it is hardly new anymore and therefore it is hardly as thrilling. at any rate, i have listened to this album as much as most of his earlier efforts. cartoon hip hop at its best

sixteen

Apostle of Hustle - Folkloric Feel

the broken social scene sound is unmistakable and frankly this album is the second best thing one could wish for (well, other than the fifteen albums that topped this one). somewhere i read that this album was supposed to be influence by latin music but i just can’t hear it. at any rate, definately the fix to tide you over until the new bss album but more importantly it is not simply a carbon copy.

seventeen

Masta Killa - No Said Date

i would like to say that i was nostalgic for the wu-tang clan but i never really got into them until after the were splintered all over the place. but of all the splinters this probably sounds the most like the wu-tang clan - and that without sounding dated. anyhow, you are dared to sit absolutely still through this song.

eighteen

Xiu Xiu - Fabulous Muscles

xiu xiu have always been an interesting proposition. while each release has had several great songs there have always been some that verge on the unlistenable. not so much this time around. still semi-disturbing at times but very very listenable and, well, likeable. and, yes, his voice grows on you. interesting trend this year (or maybe it is just me?) - sort-of-deranged singing? Anyhow, Xiu Xiu deliver this time around.

nineteen

Midwest Product - World Series of Love


oh well, this one was actually released in 2003 but since i'm a little slow.... this is yet another album that snuck up on me. as much as dislike the 80s it is quite obvious that Midwest Product draw their influences from the period. it is just so damn listenable. and admittedly their influences are more likely new order than paul young. anyhow, a near perfect blend of electronics and "real" instruments.

twenty

CocoRosie - La Maison de Mon Reve


this album should perhaps been disqualified for its pretention potential right away. two americans with a french fetish record an album mixing the old and the new with, what at least sounds like, odd instruments. thankfully i'm not particularily against pretention (how could one survive iceland otherwise?!) and what i found is one of the more refreshing albums of the year. it does sound unique almost to the point of being timeless and it is equal parts sweet and sinister.

twentyone

Mono - Walking Cloud, Deep Red Sky, Flag Fluttered and the Sun Shined


true, this album didn't get great reviews & i was a little disappointed with it myself. and at least for me part the reason was that it didn't quite live up to its previous outings - and, yes, there are a number of bands doing a good job at the quiet-loud-quiet-loud type of numbers. at any rate, walking cloud just wasn't the change of pace that i had hoped for but in the end i was still won over by the stunning beauty of this album. despite a number of well qualified in the category mono stands heads and shoulders above the rest. the sample song is perhaps not characteristic of the album but it hints at why, perhaps, they outdo their peers - this one could easily find home on an album by the delgados or mercury rev.

twentytwo

Department of Eagles - Whitey on the Moon

where on earth did this come from? and why did noone notice? released in 2003 but its my list so i'll dance if i want to. just a freakishly fun album from a couple of guys that don't seem to take themselves to seriously. not that there is any sloppiness around, it is a beautifully inventive album from all over the place. its variety reminds me of cex's earlier stuff but the neat bits could easily be mistaken for daedelus' best work - and coming from me that is high praise indeed.

twentythree

Sonic Youth - Nurse

another back to form album on the list. i had pretty much given up on sonic youth – not that i didn’t like there last few albums, i just never really got into them. here, however, just great sonic youth songs, nothing too revolutionary but simply a solid album.

twentyfour

Alias - Muted

released in 2003 but new to me. and it is all about me anyway. the song with Markus Acher from the Notwist has to be the song of the (last) year. great great song. nothing on the album can really compare but Alias is certainly someone to keep an eye on (like most everything on anticon)

twentyfive

Sondre Lerche - Two Way Monologue

my sunday morning album. coffee, fresh bread and a dose of sondre. extremely poppy in an orchestral sort of a way reminding me a bit of Beck at times. extremely hummable, extremely pleasant, and extremely nice.

twentysix

Fingathing and the Big Red Nebula Band

what a horrible name for a band. and what horrible cover art. i didn't have high hopes. especially when the line consists of a drummer, bassist and a dj. bound to be some sort of wankery going on. but they sound like daft punk. everybody dance like a robot now. but what a wank.

twentyseven

Ikara Colt - Modern Apprentice

did noone notice this album? nothing really new here and the influences shine through: the fall, sonic youth, joy division, unwound all stuffed in the ikara colt blender and the result is about as good as one could hope for. a great anti-dote to all the laptop rock, the freak folk, the dance punk and whatyouhave.

twentyeight

MF Doom - MM Food

the beats had most appeared on his special herbs series but who gives a damn...

twentynine

Efterklang - Tripper

back in the day the Icelanders spoke Danish to seem posh. today danish bands copy sigur rós. oh, how the tide turns. but to be fair, this is pretty nicely done and more than a basic carbon copy. for one thing some nicely done electronics…. and stuff.

thirty

Shannon Wright - Over the Sun

this album is intolerable. I’ve never been able to listen to it in its entirety – it just sucks the life out of me. But in small doses each song is a depressing gem. Nice guitars, nice voice, painful listening.

thirtyone

Norfolk and Western - Dusk in Cold Parlours

a quiet little album that managed to cling to my cd player for quite a long time. hints of calexico but, well, more alt-country. and i have never really got along with alt-country at all. more in the vein of the pernice brothers and lambchop perhaps? who knows? who cares? i like it.

thirtytwo

Erlend Oye - Dj kicks

i was prepared to hate this album as much as i did hate his last one. so i was a little disappointed that i just couldn’t hate this. a rather clever little album that is essentially a compilation but together by Oye but with the twist of adding some of his own vocals. surprise of the year. only half bad.

thirtythree

PJ Harvey - Uh huh her

frankly i started disliking pj harvey (as much as one can) about the same time everyone started liking her. on this album it was back to the basics and what pj does best. Rawer, simpler, less theatric.

thirtyfour

Ghostface - The Pretty Toney Album

i had somewhat mixed feelings about this album for a while and frankly i wasn’t sure if i wanted to like it. but in the end i came to my senses. the perfect marriage of hip hop and vintage soul (actually, i have no idea whether it is vintage or not but it sounds like it).

thirtyfive

The Thermals - Fuckin A

fuckin a! the thermals brought the rock. not quite the blast their last year's album brought upon us but still fuckin a! simple, lo-fi, catchy. end to begin

thirtysix

Autolux - Future Perfect

call it nostalgia. it is true that i still miss my bloody valentine. but this is not really anything like mbv. more like the americanized version of shoegazing. far more melodic and poppier but thick, crunchy guitars. pretty and loud - wasn't that really what shoegazing came down to?

it's been awhile

so i took a little break from blogging over the holidays... but enough laziness. at any rate, like any other proper music nerd i have spent the last few weeks trying to figure out what the best albums released last year were - b/c it really matters, you know.... due to time constraints i will be posting my top 35 (don't ask why!) in seven installments over the next couple of weeks or so . with song samples no less! at any rate, the links to the songs will only be active for a very limited time. first installment appears tomorrow (or the day after?). it's all very exciting, isn't it! but until then "old-fashioned" rock from the like young: out to get ME. sometimes simple is good. drums, simple guitar riffs and songs catchier than the flu.